The Decision: Vax Apartheid Edition

Each morning I wake up and reflect on the decision in front of us. With a 32-week cutoff to fly approaching: do we stay or do we go?

The original plan was to move to Kenya indefinitely. That is until we received our surprise. But life isn’t meant to be put on hold. And so, after a rigmarole to get our documents amidst a historic backlog, we crossed borders with the hubris of American passport holders.

The last four months have been life-affirming. On the coast, at the base of Mount Kenya, there’s been time and space for healing and reflection. In many ways it’s been life lived daily – not without its healthy dose of ups and downs. There have been emergency hospital visits, motorbike accidents, and elephant encounters. We’ve made new friends and watched our daughter thrive. Most importantly, we’ve been afforded the room to dream about the future we want for our growing family beyond what’s prescribed.

One of the biggest surprises here has been the culture surrounding children. Kids are allowed to be kids, even in public. There are no dirty looks or menacing insinuations when they wail in delight or despair. Waitresses will willingly play with children, strangers will watch out for your mtoto, and no amount of noise is deemed inappropriate. It’s like kids are seen as a collective blessing and not a personal burden (weird, right?).

As COVID cases began to climb in the US, we wondered out loud whether we would be better off staying put. Texts were sent to our team of supporters and soothsayers across the world. There have been moments during these discussions where I’ve felt ridiculed for even asking the question. It’s like the long shadow of American exceptionalism was cast over our conversations. The lurking assumption that because it’s the United States, everything is inherently better.

Of course, this wasn’t always the case. Our friends and family love us and want what’s best. And I get it. Kind of. I mean, vaccination rates are much higher in the US than in much of the world. We are fortunate enough to have health insurance that allows for quality care if we need emergency interventions. These are good reasons. And we are lucky to have such options.

The reality of course is that patents, hoarding, and vaccine apartheid is what is prolonging the pandemic by preventing the global majority from getting inoculated, thus allowing for further mutations and variants. The politicking over masks and public health and safety certainly doesn’t help either. In the United States, a Lancet study found that roughly 40 percent of deaths from COVID in the first year of the pandemic were unnecessary. Globally, millions of deaths were avoidable.

While the loss of life is shocking, and the economic impacts of the pandemic have been crippling for those most vulnerable, the profits being reaped are staggering. New research reveals that Pfizer, Moderna, and BioTech are making $1,000 a second, $65,000 a minute. It’s not just pharmaceutical giants. The pandemic has led to a precipitous rise in inequality. Globally, the total wealth of billionaires increased by $5 trillion since March 2020, while millions were pushed into poverty. In the US, their wealth grew by 70 percent or $2.1 trillion. In India last year, the income of 84 percent of households dropped while the number of billionaires grew. In Asia as a whole, 20 new “pandemic billionaires” emerged while 140 million people fell into poverty due to loss of livelihoods. 

This is the shock doctrine Naomi Klein warned about. When crisis hits, corporate interests abetted by politicians exploit the moment to advance their own agendas and policies while the larger population struggles to respond and resist.

What does it say about our society that during a global pandemic the super wealthy are allowed to make obscene profits while basic public needs – access to healthcare, housing, and safety – remain unmet?

Notably, the same countries sitting on vaccine recipes, are also historically responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions driving the planet to an ecological tipping point. As natural disasters and extreme weather events intensify, the climate crisis disproportionately impacts countries in the Global South and low-income communities of color – precisely those who have contributed least to the crisis. The continued failures of global leaders to mandate binding action to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees exposes the pathological nature of capitalism that ignores the writing on the wall in pursuit of endless growth.

Similarly, the pandemic has exposed the cutthroat nature of a system that demands people work when they’re sick, denies them adequate care, and disdains those who question whether our profit-motivated priorities are appropriate.

George Bush (the First) stated that the American way of life is non-negotiable. And that’s how we’re living. Killing ‘em softly to consume more and more.

Nowadays between walks in the forest, we read our incoming messages and look at the news with trepidation. Our loved ones are infected. Cases are surging to record levels. Hospitals are slammed. There is a marked difference in the tone of our conversations with folks back home.  

We are fortunate though to be able to cross borders with relative ease. For so many, seeking safety, security, and dignity involves embarking on dangerous journeys increasingly imperiled by walls, bullets, and cages. Ultimately, migration is a form of adaptation; one that people have employed throughout history as a response to changing environmental, economic, and political conditions.

Unfortunately, rich, high-emitting countries are militarizing borders and criminalizing migration instead of addressing root causes. Under the Biden Administration, immigration detention has swelled (so much for campaign promises, huh?). There are currently more than 22,000 people locked up in migrant detention centers – many of which are private, for-profit institutions – up from 14,195 when Biden took office. Since January 3, there has been a 793 percent increase of COVID cases in ICE detention facilities where social distancing is essentially impossible.

Now before y’all start with that anti-national talk, I love my countries – but not the creeping fascism. After all, I came up on hip-hop. Fell in love to neo-soul. The NBA has more parity than ever. What else do you want? A pledge of allegiance? I gave that up at 15.

Seriously though, it has been the communities of care that have emerged through growing solidarity and mutual aid networks that speak to the foundation of the future we should aim to create. The nature of the common threats we face require rejecting trickle-down myths of bootstraps and rugged individualism and realizing we are better off embracing solutions rooted in our collective uplift.

Don’t get it twisted, home is home (even when home is where the hatred is) and I can’t deny the excitement that accompanies my apprehension. We’re taking our talents to Silver Spring – for now. But I got a list of demands: a global vaccination distribution plan, a Green New Deal, universal healthcare, a reduced military budget, and safe pathways for migration.  

We’ll see you on the other side, plague permitting.

Saluting an Elephant

One

On a sunny New Year’s Day, I set out for my daily constitutional into the forests surrounding Mount Kenya. As usual, I ended up walking father than intended. You see, my legs have their own agenda. Once they start going, they need to do their thing. It’s like there’s a lag between when my brain tells them to turn around and when they accept the message.

Inevitably when I wander off like this, I get a bit lost. But I’ve spent so many hours getting lost and found that I wasn’t really worried. I had a general sense that I was headed in the right direction. The birdsong keeping me company. As I made my way back through the wilderness, a sharp pain shot through my foot. I pulled off my shoe to find an acacia thorn lodged in my sole. I tried to pry it out but it splintered in two, a piece buried somewhere in the rubber.

I found and followed a meandering path that led to the smallest of clearings. Catching my breath, it took a moment to spot where the tread continued. When I finally spied a mud track snaking through the brush, I lumbered forward, snapping the twigs and branches that closed in on my ankles and elbows. And that’s when I heard a hasty rustle hidden among the trees.

My immediate thought was that there was someone else nearby, though I rarely see anyone on my walks. Occasionally there are women carrying loads of firewood on their backs, a singular strap across the crown of their heads bearing the brunt of the weight, their arms arched backwards to hold on to ropes. There are shepherds that bring their cows and sheep to graze. But the cows and sheep wear bells around their necks and you can easily hear them jangling from a distance. They don’t venture into dense bush, preferring wider tracks.

I carefully stepped closer. Again, the crashing of branches shattered the silence, sending a charged current through the air. It was clear by the sheer force and velocity that no human could cut through thick jungle like that. I took flight.  

I had no idea where I was going but something told me to get the hell out of there. This time my legs got the message promptly. After a wild scramble, I tried to calm down. There was no sense in really getting lost. A part of me questioned what even just happened. Maybe it was wishful thinking that I had come across an ellie. I doubled back and soon found myself again at that mirage of a path plunging into the wood. Now my senses were on high alert.

I crept along the trail and, and as if sensing my presence, another boom of branches rang out. I crouched low, peering into that mosaic of dark green and earthen brown. What I think I saw looking back at me were two long, sullen eyes, those inimitable flaps, and a fine gray trunk. I didn’t wait any longer to make sure I got it right. I bolted. Again.

When I reached another clearing, I frantically called Keith, a resident forest expert. He told me to head to open space. I stumbled through the bush, the acacia thorn reasserting itself every few steps. Eventually I made it out to the spacious cattle path. I trudged home exhausted and bewildered, in desperate need of water, trying to make sense of what I was feeling. The current still clinging to me.

The next morning, I got a text from a friend who had just come across relatively fresh elephant dung in the same patch of forest. I felt vindicated. Especially since I knew I had my doubters. The night before Roxanne told me, “I don’t think it was an elephant you saw. They’re so quiet. They could be right next to you and you wouldn’t even know.”

Even that morning Keith had messaged to let me know that the folks who forage for firewood said there was no elephant yesterday. He suggested maybe it was a buffalo or waterbuck. But here was fresh dung confirming my encounter. My joy overflowing.        

I wrote the episode down in my journal and set off, hopping over the Karichota stream, ducking beneath the elephant wire. Within a few minutes I came across a stinking mountain of evidence. This one was fresh-fresh, buzzing with flies. I couldn’t help but marvel at its size. Now I’m no expert – just a worshiper of fat layers of moss – and figured the mound in front of me was from the day before, further proof of my run-in.

I walked on for a few more minutes when I heard that unmistakable rustle. I slowed down, taking each step deliberately, only to look up, awestruck. This time there was no question.

I stood there entranced for almost a minute. My feet planted amongst all the others in the forest. While my eyes remained transfixed, my ears were alert to a shuffling in the jungle beside me. I was acutely aware that I was not alone. Almost on cue, the hidden one began trumpeting. Another language I couldn’t follow. I had no idea how far or close it was. And I didn’t stick around to find out.

Two

Not gonna lie: I was shook. Like, there were a few moments where I felt unprecedented panic. I don’t know if it’s something primal that takes over. But before I had time to process the situation, I was running with no idea or care for where I was going. My scattered steps burdened with the thought that a tusker may be on my heels.

Maybe its instinctual, some component of your body or brain that recognizes that you’re in the presence of a wild animal. Your heartbeat sound like sasquatch feet. What’s terrifying is that with such little visibility, even when running away, you’re aware of the possibility that you may stumble upon one around the next turn.

Ever since we arrived at the foothills of Mount Kenya, the forest has been a refuge. Over the past month I’ve mapped the trails and trees that inhabit this space, imprinting the topography on my brain and improving my shaky sense of direction. I’ve learned the names of a few birds and how to identify many of the trees that define the landscape: lavish podo dripping with lichen, lotus-leafed water-berry, twisting olive, unfurling cape chestnut, stoic cedar, and remarkable strangler fig – or mugomo – which “holds a kaleidoscope of meanings within Kikuyu cosmology” serving as “a conduit between people and god, binding humanity and nature, manifesting coexistence and connectivity, and representing power, life, and fertility.”

Between the trees and the babbling Burguret river, the forest is teeming. It’s always a pleasure to be hailed by the Colobus monkeys. Their white fluffy tails looking like puffs of cotton candy hanging from the canopy. They jump – all four limbs outstretched – with arboreal expertise. At night the hyrax shriek. By the sounds of it recording their latest screamo album in the alfresco studio. (Fun fact: hyraxes, despite looking like gophers, are thought to be one of the closest living relatives to elephants.)

But there’s something about elephants that invokes a wondrous curiosity. I can’t say I’m adept or know much more than the basics: Their outstanding memory. A marathon gestational period. The tender way they mourn their dead. I’m into it, though. So much so that a couple months ago I insisted we got to Amboseli – the national park known for its elephant population. While friends and strangers alike suggested Maasai Mara or Tsavo for a wider array of wildlife, I was there for the ellies. Under the gaze of Kilimanjaro, we beamed as they strode through the savannah.

When we shifted to the outskirts of Nanyuki, I joked that I would love to see elephants out here in the forest. I was surprised by how serious the responses were:

“Trust me, you don’t want to see an elephant in the bush.”

“Elephants are faster than human beings – you don’t want to contend with them.”

“There are people who have encountered them that are seriously traumatized.”

I keep coming back to the almost primitive fear I felt. Initially, there was a part of me that was mad I didn’t stick around longer to see what was really good. But then again, I was on their home turf. It was an away game for me, so to speak.  

It’s taken me a few days, but I get it. While I faithfully continue my daily pilgrimage, I’m unable to get so easily lost in my thoughts. Now any scurry through the understory or flutter of wings snaps my neck around. There are times when I am surrounded on all sides by shades of dark green and I feel the electricity return.

And I have to admit, maybe all those warnings served their purpose.

Three

Human-wildlife conflicts are intensifying as stressors on natural habitats increase from agricultural and industrial activities. The climate crisis has exacerbated these conflicts as competition over land, food, and water grows. Hundreds of people are killed each year by elephants, alone. In response to the destruction of crops and property, and threats to food security and livelihoods, wildlife is killed in retaliation.

As human-wildlife conflict mitigation strategies are considered, especially in and around conservation areas, local communities should be part of the process of developing context-specific solutions. The FAO states that involving local communities in the management of, and benefits derived from, conservation areas, is crucial to addressing human-wildlife conflicts.

Yet too often local communities are marginalized bystanders in the big business of conservation. While tourism from conservation efforts generate huge revenue, local – often Indigenous – communities face dispossession, violence, and eviction. Recent research finds that the creation of protected areas and national parks continues to drive widespread human rights violations. This model of fortress conservation, based on the belief that biodiversity must be kept in isolation, absent from humans, should be replaced with community-led efforts rooted in an understanding of the critical role communities can – and in many instances already do – play in forest and wildlife protection.

Four

I dip below the elephant wire and sink to my knees. Now that I’m back on familiar ground, I shake my head in wonder before sending my offerings up in a cloud.

I lean back against an ancient trunk and listen. Each day the forest reveals a little bit more. I’ve learned to accept the advice embossed in cyphers of moss and lichen. They are continually dispelling self-doubt and planting seeds of imagination, reminding me that there is enchantment in this world.

After all, the natural world is the original inspiration for all arts and crafts, sound and color. Western-centric, Enlightenment thought has succeeded in deceiving us to believe that the key to that ill-defined goal of progress is humans’ domination over nature. As if human beings are somehow divorced from the world we inhabit. As if our fate is separate from the ancestors that inhabit the forests, rivers, and streams. The frightening results of such thinking are now being felt with intensifying tremors all around us.

Follow the signs only you see. Trust that they’ll take you where you need. Pay respects to the interconnected webs of life.

Receive elephant blessings.